


Swear

by Maayacola



Category: Johnny's Entertainment, KAT-TUN (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-13
Updated: 2012-12-13
Packaged: 2017-11-21 01:49:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/592081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maayacola/pseuds/Maayacola
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jin remembers the first time he couldn’t stand to see what Kamenashi had turned into anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Swear

 

Jin remembers the first time he couldn’t stand to see what Kamenashi had turned into anymore.

 

He and Nakamaru were goofing off during a break in practice, and gulping water in between laughs as they stretched out their tight and sore muscles. Ueda and Taguchi were being queens in the corner, icing their knees and checking their cell phones. Koki was on the phone with his mother.

 

Kame was standing in the corner, just watching them, standing as though he was above it all. His eyes flitted from person to person, his mouth a straight line across his face. Jin looked in his eyes and couldn’t see anything there. Not the eager boy who had made terrible jokes but was cute anyway, not the self-conscious adolescent who wasn’t sure he was good enough to be leader but sure he wanted to grasp the opportunity with both hands, and not the man who had offered Jin his shoulder to cry on when Jin had broken up with his first girlfriend. This Kame was a shell of a person, and certainly not the Kame that Jin had thought of as one of his best friends.

 

Kame caught Jin’s eyes. _What do you want_ , they seemed to say, and Jin felt cold inside.

 

The next day, he talked to Johnny about going to study English in LA.

 

***

 

“Jin, tell me a story,” Kame says, voice muffled by his pillow in the silence of the night.

 

“What kind of story?” Jin asks the younger boy, his own voice scratchy from a long day of practice with his vocal coach, lying on his back and looking up at the white ceiling.

 

“A happy one, please. One with a happy ending.”

 

Jin smiles. “A happy ending? Okay, I’ve got one.” Jin folds his hands together and rests them on his belly, mouth in a tiny smile. “Once there was a cute little boy named Kazuya, with caterpillar eyebrows—“

 

“Hey!”

 

“Do you want me to tell the story or not?”

 

“Yes, please,” Kame mutters, dropping his head back down with a sigh.

 

“Kazuya was a special little boy, who had big dreams of being a baseball star. But one day he found himself at an audition for a big huge company called…um…Jimmy’s Entertainment.”

 

Kame giggles then. “Jimmy’s? Really? Is that the best you can do?”

 

“Shut up,” Jin replies, but there’s no heat in his voice as he looks over at Kame, who is looking at him now, eyes soft. Jin thinks Kamenashi looks like an alien, but he is the cutest alien Jin has ever seen. “So Kazuya is nervous, and scared, but then an incredibly AWESOME boy comes into the room and sits next to him.”

 

“What happens next?” Kame asks, as if he doesn’t know the answer, and Jin rolls onto his side to look at him full on.

 

Jin, who is 16 years old, doesn’t know a thing about love, but when he thinks about Kamenashi, he thinks he might someday. “The two boys become the best of friends. In fact, when they are 90 years old, they sit together under a _kotatsu_ and talk about the good old days, when they were famous idols, and smoke pipes together, and they still have lots of inside jokes that none of their other friends understand, and they’re together.”

 

Kame draws his lower lip between his teeth, nibbling on it softly, and Jin feels his heart clench. “Can we really be together when we’re 90? Can we still be friends?”

 

“Well, not exactly. Cause I’m older than you, so I’ll be 92, but you know—“

 

“Promise me.” Kame’s voice is serious, and his thick eyebrows draw together with intent. He sticks out his pinky. “Pinky promise.”

 

Jin grabs the pinky with his own, and they stamp their thumbs together to seal it. “Pinky promise.”

 

Jin, who is 16 years old, doesn’t know a thing about love.

 

***

 

When Jin is in LA studying English for 6 months, he calls Yamapi every Friday night. Pi is always pissed about it, because for him it is Saturday morning. Jin thinks this is hilarious.

 

“Good moooorning, sunshine!” Jin chirps into the phone, and Yamapi swears at him violently.

 

“One day,” Pi groans, “one day I am going to castrate you, and sell your testicles to Aiba Masaki.”

 

Jin cackles gleefully. “You wouldn’t dare! Because you know if you did he’d make you drink some weird milkshake made out of them, and then where would you be?”

 

Yamapi swears again, and Jin can hear him rolling around in bed. “Ah fuck,” he says. “I can’t find my slippers.”

 

“They’re on the other side of the bed, dumbass. You always wake up and roll over to the left, and your slippers are always on the right.”

 

“Oh yeah,” Pi mutters, and he’s finally awake. “Come back home, Jin, so that I don’t have to make my own coffee in the morning. I miss my roomie.”

 

“Dude, you know I don’t know how to make coffee.”

 

“I know, but I don’t feel so guilty ordering delivery if they have to bring two coffees.”

 

They both laugh, and Jin realizes he misses Yamapi a lot, all the time. Yamapi was his best friend, had really SAVED him at one point, when Jin wasn’t sure he could live up to being a Johnny, that he could keep going in an industry where he had to constantly pretend to be a one dimensional human being.

 

Yamapi talks to Jin about inconsequential things for an hour, and Jin feels his eyes getting heavy with sleep. “Well, I’ve got to go,” Pi says finally. “I’ve got a rehearsal with Kamenashi.”

 

Jin’s eyes are suddenly wide open. “What now?”

 

“Well, we’re doing some small charity concert and we’re performing SA, you know, because it’s the best song of all time.”

 

“Shut the fuck up, you braggart,” Jin says, before he adds hesitatingly: “How is Kamenashi?”

 

Yamapi sighs. “Jin, you know my rules. If you want to know about Kamenashi’s life, call Kamenashi.”

 

“It’s not that easy!” Jin wails. “He’s like some evil alien robot that doesn’t feel things and he wouldn’t even answer if I call, and if he did he would just sit on the other end and judge me because I took a hiatus right after debuting with no explanation.”

 

Yamapi is silent on the other end for a moment. “Then why do you want to know how he is?”

 

“I don’t know why! I can’t help it, I just…” He’s never really talked about it with Yamapi before, how he feels about new, robot alien Kame, who’s so different from cute alien Kame in ways that Jin can’t even explain. Yamapi’s tried to ask before, but Jin’s never really tried to answer. “I just…I can’t talk to him, I can’t even look at photos of him! What am I supposed to say to him, anyway? ‘Sorry I left the country because you don’t have eyebrows anymore,’ or-“

 

“You left KAT-TUN right after debut because Kamenashi doesn’t have eyebrows anymore?” Yampi asks quietly, as if he’s trying to figure something out, but Jin doesn’t know what Yamapi can possibly figure out when JIN HIMSELF doesn’t even know what he’s talking about.

 

“THE EYEBROWS ARE AN ALLEGORY FOR HIS SOUL,” Jin replies despairingly. “I left the country because I couldn’t bear to look at the imposter with no eyebrows and no soul wandering around in Kame’s place.”

 

“Jin, I gotta go. We’ll talk next Friday, alright?” Yamapi’s voice is soft, and sort of…consoling. “But seriously, you should just call Kamenashi if you want to know how he is so much. But! I will tell him you said hi.”

 

“Don’t you dare tell him—“ the phone clicks, and Jin stares at the phone in his hand, knowing he still remembers Kame’s number by heart, if he hasn’t changed it in the year and a half since he last dialed it.

 

In the end, he puts the phone down and goes to bed.

 

When he and Yamapi talk the next week, it is about Pi’s new girlfriend wanting them to get a cat together and how Pi wants to break up with her because it’s too serious. “But Pi, we have a dog together,” Jin replies, laughing.

 

“I know, but we’re bros forever,” Yampi says, and laughs.

 

“Nothing’s forever,” Jin says back, and thinks about pinky promises in the dark.

 

***

 

“Hey, Jin, do you think we’ll debut together?” Kame asks, and Jin is silent.

 

“I dunno. Yamashita,” and Jin thinks he might be getting close enough to Yamashita to call him Yamapi soon, “didn’t get to debut with 4Tops, so I’m not sure.”

 

“I hope we do,” Kame says, sitting across from Jin on the other side of the couch, eating vanilla ice cream, only their ankles touching. “I can’t think of anyone else I’d want to debut with.”

 

“Me either,” Jin says, and it’s true. Kamenashi isn’t his only friend, but there is something special between them, an energy Jin doesn’t understand that makes his heart beat faster and his face turn red for no reason at all just because Kamenashi is smiling. “But with or without me, you’re going to be a big star.” Jin also thinks this is true. Kamenashi is prickly and sometimes unapproachable and sometimes bratty, but he’s also soft in all the right places, and Jin knows he has that special something that makes a star.

 

“But we’re better together,” Kame says, and Jin smiles. “So let’s support each other.”

 

“I’ll always support you.” Jin looks into Kamenashi’s eyes, “even if we’re separated. Even though you only like vanilla ice-cream, and it’s disgusting.”

 

“Swear it?” Kame asks, holding out his pinky. “Swear you’ll always have vanilla ice-cream. And that you’ll support me.”

 

“Mmmhmm.”

 

***

 

When Jin gets back from LA, there is no one waiting at the airport. Only Pi knows he is coming home, and Pi is at a photo shoot until 8 PM, so Jin is greeted only by his manager, who looks at him like he died last week. “Oh god, your hair. Your skin. Oh god, how can we fix this in only two days?”

 

Jin grins, and as always, he’s forgiven. “Sorry?”

 

“Alright, alright, let’s get you home.”

 

As they leave the airport, the paparazzi are everywhere.

 

Jin arrives at his and Pi’s apartment, and the first thing he does is open the fridge. There are two _onigiri_ and a note on a pink glitter post-it. “Welcome home, fatass. Get some sleep, Ryo and Yuu are coming over at 10:30.” Jin looks at his watch. 4:15. Plenty of time.

 

He goes over to the answering machine and clicks it without even thinking.

 

“Jin you fucking douchebag,” he hears Koki blare at top volume. “We’re backstage at a show during break and it’s all over the fucking news that you were spotting ARRIVING IN JAPAN today. WHAT THE FUCK? Anyway,” and he hears tussling. “Hey, Jin, welcome home!” Nakamaru. “Jin, it’s been a while.” _Hisashiburi._ Ueda. “JIIIIIIIIN CALL USSSSSSS,” Taguchi gleefully exclaims into the receiver.

 

Jin is happy to hear from them. He’s talked to almost all over them over the past 6 months, through email, and occasional short phone calls. They were all pissed when he left, but something in his eyes must have given away that he needed to leave more than he needed anything, because they had been quick to forgive.

 

All of his band mates except… “Akanishi, welcome home.” _Okaeri._

 

Except the one he had escaped from.

 

***

 

Jin feels nervous around Kamenashi all the time now. Every time their fingers brush when they’re looking over lyric sheets, every time they bump into each other during a dance rehearsal.

 

He doesn’t like the loss of control, the feeling that his heart is going to beat right out of his chest if he doesn’t hold onto it hard enough. He can’t even look at Kamenashi anymore, and Kamenashi has noticed.

 

“Jin did I…do something?”

 

Jin can’t stand that wounded look in his eyes, and know he did it. He can’t stand how much he wants to…he doesn’t even know what he wants, although he’s starting to get a vague idea that it might not be what he’s supposed to want from Kamenashi.

 

They might be debuting, and he has to think about the group, and about songs and dances, and not about how soft Kamenashi’s hair looks with all those pretty layers or how husky and pretty Kame’s voice turned out after all the cracking had stopped.

 

Kamenashi places a hand on Jin’s arm, tentatively. “Jin?” and Jin realizes he’s been staring, eyebrows furrowed.

 

All of a sudden he can’t take it. “Don’t TOUCH me,” he hisses, and Kamenashi recoils, as if Jin had slapped him. “Just stop…touching me.”

 

Jin resolves not to look at Kame anymore.

 

Of course, he can’t stop, but Kame has definitely stopped looking at him.

 

And one week later, Kamenashi comes in with perfectly arched eyebrows, and the rest of the guys are full of goofy jibes and teases. Jin swallows tightly, and it burns.

 

***

 

Jin’s first rehearsal with the guys since his return has him looking much different than when he stepped off the plane 2 days ago. His hair is neatly layered, and highlighted, his split ends gone. His skin’s been exfoliated, and his nails buffed. He looks like an idol again, and with every correction and improvement Jin feels the metal bars of his cage rebuilding themselves around him.

 

Everything is fine, at first, but then they are rehearsing and Kame’s tongue is sharp. Koki slaps him on the back. “It’s the first day back, Kame, relax,” and Kame’s eyes blaze.

 

“He’s been relaxing for six months, it’s time to take things seriously again,” Kame snaps back at him, and Koki removes his hand.

 

“I AM taking this seriously, asshole,” Jin replies, his breathing labored as he prepares to run through the sequence again, concentrating on where he messed up so he won’t do it the next time.

 

“You never take ANYTHING seriously,” Kame snarls, and Nakamaru is biting his lip and looking back and forth between Jin and Kamenashi like they’re about to brawl. Jin feels something grab in his chest and he thinks it must be rage.

 

“You don’t know me anymore, Kamenashi. What makes you think I don’t take anything seriously?”

 

“If you did,” Kame says, “You wouldn’t have—“ He shakes himself. “Nevermind. Not now. Let’s do it again.”

 

Ueda offers Jin a bottle of water, silently. “Thanks,” Jin says quietly. Koki looks over at him. _I know you’re taking this seriously,_ his eyes say, and Jin quirks a smile at him.  Jin is determined to prove that he is better than Kame thinks he is, and to wipe that disdaining sneer off of his cold mouth.

 

But Kame snaps less through the next hour, then practice is over. Soon, only Jin and Kame are left in the practice room, Jin still looking in the mirror and reviewing a part from the chorus that still isn’t flowing to the correct timing. He does it over and over, and he can feel Kame’s gaze on his back.

 

“I’m sorry,” Kamenashi says at last. “I can see that you’re serious.” He picks up his bag. Jin is surprised. Kame hasn’t spoken to him unless he has to in a long time.

 

“What were you going to say?” Jin asks, pushing his luck.

 

“Pardon?”

 

“Earlier,” Jin replies. “What were you going to say?”

 

Something…breaks. Kame drops his bag again, and walks over to Jin, slowly, like he’s not sure if he wants to.

 

“If you took things seriously,” Kame says then, and Jin thinks _tell me tell me tell me_ “You never would have broken your promise to me.”

 

Jin is silent. Kame continues, and it’s the most emotion Jin has seen out of Kame in over 2 years. “Can you see us, as we are now,” Kame’s voice catches in his throat. “Under a _kotatsu_ when we’re 90?”

 

And there it is. Jin feels the weight of that pinky promise, hanging on his shoulders like the mantle of a king.

“The worst part is,” Kame says, and Jin can believe this is Kame, the same Kame who has been looking at him with nothing but ice and disdain. Kame’s eyes are a little wild, and his hands are clenched, and it’s nothing extreme if you don’t know Kame, but even after all this time apart Jin does, and Kame might as well be screaming. “I don’t even know what I did to make you—“

 

“No, no, no,” Jin says. “I don’t want to talk—“

 

“Of course you don’t!” Kame hisses, his eyes no longer sad but filled with rage. He’s too close, Jin thinks. _Too fucking close._ Jin can feel his angry breath. “You won’t ever explain. You’re such a selfish prick—“

 

“Stop!” Jin cries, and tries to move back but behind him there is a mirror and he can’t move. It’s too hot. He hates the way Kame makes him feel even now. Kamenashi is a complete and total asshole, and one moment of vulnerability isn’t going to change who he is now to Jin, the boy he used to love but now can’t STAND; arrogant, rude, cold and-- He can’t move away, and something shifts in Kame’s eyes, and Jin thinks it might be something he’s felt before, there in Kame’s eyes. “I fucking hate you,” Jin whispers, and Kame’s eyes narrow. “I hate you too.”

 

Jin doesn’t know why he moves closer, only that now they are kissing. Kame’s mouth is hard and unforgiving underneath his own. Jin presses his lips into Kame’s even more fiercely, and suddenly, those lips soften, just the slightest bit. Kame’s tongue slides its way effortlessly forward, tangling with Jin’s, and the wet heat between their mouths pulls groan from them both. Jin bites down on Kame’s lip, hard enough to draw blood. He tastes metal, and then even more when Kame bites him back. (Even this moment is a competition. Everything is between them now. Jin is just as determined to win this one as he was all the others.) Jin pulls Kame closer to him to deepen the kiss, and feels Kame’s cock hard and hot, press against his left thigh. Jin pushes that thigh into Kame’s arousal, hard, and Kame releases a hoarse cry, muffled by Jin’s mouth, before pulling away roughly, shoving Jin into the wall.

 

Their eyes meet for just a moment, and Kame’s eyes are dark with a mix of desire and rage. Jin feels himself get harder even as he takes a step back.

 

Kame growls then, his face contorted with…something, before he tears his eyes away and flees the room. Jin watches him leave, and his own senses start returning, leaving him wondering what the hell just happened.

 

***

 

Jin and Kamenashi haven’t talked in 6 months. Jin misses Kamenashi, but Kamenashi is changing. Kamenashi, who used to have a ready smile, only smiles for the camera now. Off set, he is demanding and frigid. “It’s like someone switched his humanity off,” Koki says one day. Ueda smacks him on the back of the head, but they’ve all been thinking it, and Jin wonders with a pain in his guy if it’s all his fault somehow.

 

“He’s a total dick,” he finds himself saying, and Koki nods. Nakamaru sighs and grabs his bag.

 

“Well, we’re a group now,” Nakamaru says. “And we know there’s Kame inside there somewhere.”

 

“How deep is it buried, then?” Jin rejoins, and Taguchi sends him a look of faint disapproval. “Don’t look at me like that Junno!”

 

“He was one of your best friends,” Taguchi replies. “What happened?”

 

Jin is uncomfortable. “I don’t know,” Jin says.

 

Kamenashi is so different Jin doesn’t miss him actively anymore. He sometimes reminisces about Old Kame, but he doesn’t miss the sweaty palms and rapid heartbeat he couldn’t control and didn’t understand. He does miss the warmth of Kamenashi’s ankle touching his own, and the quiet trust in Kamenashi’s eyes when he looked up at Jin as if Jin had all the answers, even though he had to have known that Jin didn’t have ANY answers.

 

Sometimes, though, when Jin looks at Kame, and Kame looks back at him with one manicured eyebrow lifted in idle curiosity, Jin can feel a slow burn in his gut, and feels himself get a little hard when he thinks about punching Kame in the face until his eyes soften and his face is as awkward and alien as it was when he was 14.

 

***

 

“Jin, tell me a story,” Kame says, and Jin sighs.

 

“Once there was a turtle that had to go on a long journey far away from his friends to find a magical flower. The turtle was scared to go alone, but he knew couldn’t ask his friends to help, because it might be dangerous. But the turtle realized that traveling without his best friend, Jin, was terribly lonely.”

 

Kame smiles. “That would be lonely.”

 

“But Jin, when he found out the turtle had left without him, hurried to catch up. He traveled two days without sleeping to catch up to the turtle. When he finally found him, he was very cross. Jin looked at the turtle and says ‘where are you going without me?’ The turtle, who was very surprised to see his friend, answered: ‘To find the magical flower! But it’s very dangerous, so…’”

 

Jin crooks a smile at Kame, and continues the story. “’Then why’d you leave without me, stupid? How am I supposed to watch your back?’”

 

***

 

Jin doesn’t bring up the kiss, and neither does Kame. But Kame’s stone face has returned, and it makes Jin sick inside. He doesn’t know what he wants more, to kick Kamenashi’s stupid face or throw him down on the floor and…and something.

 

But Jin is in a terrible mood, and as he and Yamapi order take-out, Yamapi asks him about it.

 

“Dude, what is up? You’ve been looking like deranged raccoon all week.”

 

“Kamenashi is a bitch and I hate him forever,” Jin says promptly, then takes a swig from the coke he’s been nursing for the past hour while staring at the TV with his jaw clenched.

 

“Ohhhhh kay,” Yamapi says. “Is this about his eyebrows? Because I don’t understand that.”

 

Jin eyes Yamapi, wondering if he should try to explain at all or if Yamapi is just going to make fun of him about that either way. “It’s not really the eyebrows at all,” Jin says impatiently, and Yamapi looks at him full on, ready to listen.

 

Jin likes that Yamapi knows him so well, knows when he’s about to say something serious, and knows when Jin needs him to listen. Yamapi can read the tone of Jin’s voice like it’s his own, and over the past 10 years Jin likes to think he can read Pi just as well.

 

“When Kame…when Kame had those bushy brows, an that bizarre alien face, when he didn’t look so polished, so…statue-like,” Jin says, then pauses. “That person, that person was everything to me.”

 

Yamapi is still. “When he laughed…he had a laugh that made me feel like I was going to fill up with helium and just float away, and sometimes I wanted him to get away from me because I felt all paralyzed and edgy, and his face was so ugly but I couldn’t stop staring at it, and he made terrible jokes that no one thought were funny… I never understood it, but I LIKED it even when I was confused and didn’t know what to do. And then he was gone. Like when he cut off his eyebrows he wasn’t that person anymore and I hate looking at him and knowing what he was and what he isn’t.”

 

Yamapi looks down at his own cup of soda, and licks his lips. “So it’s like that,” he says, and Jin doesn’t understand.

 

“Like what?”

 

“You were in love with him,” Yamapi says gently, like he’s trying to soften the blow.

 

Jin barks a laugh. “That isn’t love,” he says, “Love is wanting to kiss someone all the time because you can, love is roses, and thinking the person beside you is beautiful all the time, and thinking that the other has no flaws and is perfect and shits rainbows.”

 

Yamapi looks at Jin as if he has been dropped on the head repeatedly as a baby. “I’m sorry, Jin, but I don’t think you understand love at all.”

 

The take-out comes, and Jin and Yamapi fight over the controller until they’re both winded and watching Power Rangers in English. “I love you, Pi.”

 

Yamapi smiles. “I know. But I bet my laugh doesn’t fill you up with helium.” Jin buries his head in his hands.

 

“I don’t know why I tell you anything.”

 

***

 

Kamenashi’s hands are soft as they play in Jin’s hair. “I don’t understand why I can’t go with you guys though.”

 

Jin is going out to see a movie with Yamapi and Ryo. “Because it’s just gonna be us this time. I don’t have to take you with me everywhere,” Jin replies.

 

Kame pouts. “Are you ashamed of being my friend?” he asks. Kame knows he’s not super popular with the others, because he’s small and shy and eccentric. Right now, his caterpillar brows are furrowed.

 

“No,” Jin says, “It’s not that at all.” _I don’t want them to like you_ he thinks. _I want to keep your light all to myself._

 

***

 

Jin doesn’t know what he used to feel about Kamenashi, but right now all he wants is to make him bleed.

 

“You’re doing it WRONG, Akanishi. Get your shit together,” Kame says, even though Koki and Ueda had both messed up the choreography as well. “Are you stupid? We don’t have hours for you to learn 2 minutes of choreo, seriously.”

 

“Take a chill pill, Kame,” Nakamaru says from his position on the floor, head between his knees as he attempts to recover some air. “Like, seriously, a chill pill.”

“Grow up,” Kame yells. “I’m not being a friend right now, I’m being a leader. We have to get this perfect. Get up.”

 

Jin’s breath stops, and a red haze covers his eyes. “You DICK,” he says, and the others, who had been gearing up to argue as well, look at Jin with some alarm. He wonders how he must appear, fists clenched and face red with exertion and fury. “’I’m not being a friend right now,’ is it? You haven’t been anyone’s friend in years,” he grinds out.

 

Kame’s eyes narrow. “Oh, are you giving friendship lessons, now, Jin? Fuck you, you lazy, self-absorbed, abandon-your-teammates-on-a-whim, hypocritical BASTARD.”

 

Jin doesn’t remember the motion, exactly, but he feels the sting in his hands, and sees Kame on the floor, hand to his nose as blood spurts out. He looks at Kame, on the floor, bleeding, looking up at him in wrath, and feels a sudden burst of arousal.

 

Later, when the blood’s been cleaned up and Jin and Kamenashi have finished getting lectured by their manager for correct behavior among band mates. (“And if it happens again, I’ll take it to Johnny,”) they are gathering their things to leave and Jin realizes they are alone, and he’s free to pummel Kamenashi into oblivion.

 

“You’re such a child,” Kamenashi says then. “Who solves things with their fists when they’re older than 11, anyway?” His voice is snide, and Jin just hates him. “But then again, you’ve never stopped acting like you were 11.”

 

Jin hates all of him.

 

Jin especially hates everything about Kame’s mouth: his too-thin lips and its naturally disapproving set, and the bullshit that is always coming out of it. He hates the memory of how warm and wet it becomes under the press of his lips, and the sexy noises that emerge from it when Jin’s tongue slips inside.

 

And as Kame bitches at him, for something Jin doesn’t understand or get, Jin can’t help but grab the neck of the smaller man’s shirt and drag that mouth up to his own.

 

Kame yelps in surprise, but melts under the assault of Jin’s determined mouth. Jin kisses him with everything, their tongues battling and yet tender, the kiss loving and yet not. It’s Jin who ends the kiss, this time, breaking away and leaving them both panting for air. Jin feels desperately hot, and wants nothing more than to seize Kamenashi’s lips again and again.

 

“This is fucked up,” he says instead.

 

Kame looks up at him, lips bruised and swollen. “What else is new?”

 

**

 

That night, Jin can’t sleep. He closes his eyes, and can see nothing but Kame’s bruised lips and Kame’s piercing eyes.

 

***

“We don’t need you, you know,” Kame says after a brutal practice, as Jin massages a sore point between his eyes.

 

His face is inscrutable. “KAT-TUN doesn’t need you; we did fine without you, and as soon as you came back the dynamics got all screwed up. Why didn’t you just stay in America? None of us want you here.”

 

Jin looks at him, mouth gaping, as the others come back in.

 

_It hurts_ , Jin thinks. _It hurts_.

 

Jin remembers a Kamenashi who didn’t want to debut without him.

 

“ _I can’t think of anyone else I’d want to debut with.”_

Ankles touching.

 

The next week, Jin tells the group about the Yellow Gold Tour 3011, in America.

 

Koki stops answering his calls.

 

In March, 2010, Jin decides he can’t do it anymore—can’t pretend that he can go back to seeing Kame every day.

 

***

 

It’s Friday night so he calls Yamapi. “Hey Yamapi.”

 

“I really hate you, you know that?”

 

“Naw,” he says, “You love me, we are bros.”

 

“I’m busy right now,” Pi says quickly. “Can’t talk.”

 

“What could you possibly—“ Jin hears a voice, a woman’s voice, whispering. “I see. Call you later.”

 

“Bye.”

 

The phone call ends.

 

When Jin thinks about how he wakes up alone every morning, he tries to imagine his ideal woman.

 

Disturbingly, all he can imagine is Kamenashi laying next to him, shirtless and taking a long slow drag off a cigarette, one eyebrow lifted in disdain.

 

“Fuck me,” Jin whispers aloud to himself. “I am in serious need of therapy.”

 

Later, in the shower, Jin tries to deny the face behind his eyelids is Kamenashi’s and he makes long, slow pulls at his cock. He tries to deny that Kame’s bruised lips and the taste of Kame’s blood in his mouth is what finally pushes him over the edge as he comes all over his hand.

 

He fucks one of his female backup dancers in the restroom the next day to make himself feel better.

 

It doesn’t help, because he has to bite back from screaming ‘Kame!’ as he comes inside of her.

 

***

 

“Jin, can you…tell me a story?” Kame asks, and Jin is surprised. Kame hasn’t asked for a story in months. “A love story, please.”

 

“Okay,” Jin thinks for a minute. “Once there was a beautiful prince named Kazuya.”

 

Kamenashi laughs, and Jin smiles a bit too. “’You have to get married, Prince Kazuya,’ his dad says one day, and so they hold a fancy ball. Kazuya is bored at the ball, until he sees the beautiful Princess Jinnifer. They dance all night and fall in love.”

 

“Do they get married?” Kame asks wistfully.

 

“Of course,” Jin says, “And they live happily ever after.”

 

“We should get married someday, Jin,” Kamenashi says jokingly. “We’ll have the coolest wedding ever. And a baseball themed wedding cake.”

 

Jin laughs, but inside he feels hollow. He images an old Kamenashi sitting across from him under a _kotatsu_ and knows he might not be joking.

 

***

 

The day after the press conference announcing Jin’s permanent leave from KAT-TUN—he hasn’t spoken to Koki in months and it makes him want to cry every time he thinks about it, he goes to the jimusho for the first time since he left for his tour. He corners a junior. “Tanaka Koki,” he growls, and the junior points vaguely in the direction of the meeting rooms.

 

He hears Koki’s voice before he can open the door. “That fucker thinks he can just leave and—“ his voice is almost screaming. Jin halts, his hand hovering by the door.

 

“It’s my fault,” Kamenashi says quietly, and Jin’s heart freezes. “It’s actually all my fault.”

 

“I know you guys didn’t really get along,” Nakamaru says, placating, “But it’s probably not your fault, Kame.”

 

“I told him—“ Kame’s voice sounds tight, like he doesn’t want to admit what he’s about to confess. “I told him KAT-TUN was fine with five. Better with five. That we all thought so. That he’d fucked everything up by coming back and he should have just stayed in America. Then he went to Johnny and got sent on a solo tour.”

 

Koki is breathing hard. “Are you telling me that I’ve been ignoring one of my best friends because you’re an absolute dickface who is so wrapped up in some personal drama that happened 6 years ago that you ruined our BAND? Fuck Kame, now I want to punch you in the face.”

 

Jin can recognized the sound of Kame trying not to cry even now, and clearly the others can see that something isn’t right, because they don’t add to the condemnation. “I fucked up,” Kame says in a choked voice. “I really…”

 

Jin thinks maybe this isn’t a good time, and leaves the group to themselves.

 

One week later, he finds an unmarked bag outside his door. Inside is a turtle plushie, and a small card. _How am I supposed to watch your back?_ It says.

 

“What the fuck did you send this for?” he says, quietly.

 

“Don’t you know?” Kamenashi says, and there’s something hollow and sad in his voice that Jin doesn’t understand.

 

“No, I don’t.” Jin says. _You said you didn’t need me._

 

“Oh,” Kame says, and Jin hangs up on him.

 

Then Koki calls, and Jin is so shocked he almost forgets to answer.

 

“Hello?” he says hesitantly into the phone.

 

“Jin,” says Koki’s nervous voice. “How are you?”

 

“Koki,” Jin says, and he’s embarrassed that he’s starting to cry. “Koki.”

 

“Are you crying? Don’t cry, that is so gay.” Koki mutters, sounded like a relieved wreck on the other side of the phone. “Let’s get lunch next week.”

 

Jin thinks about his schedule, full to the bursting, about the meetings he’s got for a new movie he might be starring in with Keanu fucking Reeves, a Hollywood movie, about the recording sessions and the lyric sessions and Josh visiting to get an apartment and says “Sure, anytime.” He can move his schedule around if he has to—he knows what a big chance this is, bigger than any Hollywood film.

 

“Nakamaru and Ueda are coming too. Taguchi has got something else family related going on and…well, yeah. Nakamaru and Tatsuya can come too, right.”

 

Jin bites his lip, trying to stop himself from letting out a sob. “Yeah,” he breathes. “Yeah. I’d love that.”

 

Koki laughs on the other end of the line. “It’ll be good to see you again.” Then he’s quiet for a moment. “And…I’m sorry. For not letting you explain, I guess.”

 

For the first time in a long time, Jin doesn’t feel like he’s in a cage.

 

 

***

 

Jin is ringing in 2011 with more and more good news. He’s in an honest to goodness Hollywood film, his tour was a roaring success, and his single came out at number one.

 

He’s at Yamapi’s birthday party when the first bad thing that’s happened since the ball drop bumps into him and spills rum and coke all over his expensive Fubu hoodie. “Fuck!” Jin exclaims.

 

“I’m so sorry!” A familiar nasal voice says, and Jin feels dread well up in his stomach. He hasn’t looked at this face in over a year, hasn’t heard this voice in almost as long. “Jin?” His first name. He hasn’t heard that in far longer, not from that mouth.

 

Jin looks at Kamenashi, in his expensive designer jeans, with his hair falling immaculately around his beautiful, angular face, and feels it all come rushing back to him.

 

Jin hates how Kame is always making him FEEL, bursting at the seams with all sorts of emotions Jin can’t understand and Jin can feel his face reacting, because Jin has never been good at hiding his emotions.

 

And then Kame reaches out and touches him on the arm. It’s the first time Kame has touched him since…that time, and Jin feels dizzy, like he’ll never be able to deal with Kamenashi like he deals with everyone else. “Can we…talk?”

 

“I have to go,” Jin says, but doesn’t move his arm. He remembers overhearing Kame’s choked voice through the door, and it’s all the hesitation Kamenashi needs for encouragement.

 

“Next week,” Kame says. “I’ll call you.”

 

“You can’t,” Jin mumbles out, and Kame looks stricken. “My number’s changed,” he mumbles quickly, and the expression on Kame’s face is almost a smile, and there’s something else that Jin doesn’t get—when did he stop being able to read Kame? And Jin wonders if it might be hope.

 

Jin gives Kamenashi his new number and stumbles out of the club, and into his car. He only had one drink, and feels fine to drive.

 

He looks at the turtle plushie on the dashboard and waits for his heart to slow down. “Stop it, Turtle,” he whispers at the plushie, which he leaves in the car so he never has to travel alone.

 

***

 

Jin still buys vanilla ice cream and leaves it in the freezer, even though he hates it.

 

***

 

Kamenashi calls the home phone instead of Jin’s cell, and when Yamapi answers the phone, his eyes fall out of his head. “Kamenashi, what’s up?...You want to talk to WHO? Yeah, Akanishi is home, hold on.”

 

Kame is breathless on the other line. “I didn’t save the number in my phone right. I mean, I typed it in but didn’t save it, I was to nervous and then…”

 

“It’s fine,” Jin interrupts, and Yamapi is unabashedly eavesdropping in the kitchen entryway, looking at Jin as if he has six heads because Jin is on the phone with his arch nemesis.

 

It’s been 4 days since the club, since the party, and Jin had been on pins and needles.

 

“Let’s get coffee tomorrow,” Kame says.

 

“Okay.”

 

“Two is okay? At…the shop across from the old baseball field?”

 

Jin swallows as he remembers Kame and him sneaking there and eating cookies before going back to Kame’s house. Kame’s mom always scolded them for spoiling their appetites, somehow knowing despite the pains they took to make it a secret. Jin found out years later the old lady who owned the shop used to call and say she’d ‘given the sweet boys cookies, since they were so cute,’ and he’d been a little disappointed Kame’s mom wasn’t really a ninja.

 

“Yeah, sounds fine,” Jin says, swallowing again. “Sounds just fine.”

 

He hangs up, and Yamapi taps a foot. “So?” he says.

 

“He wants to talk, get coffee.”

 

“Is this why you bailed on my birthday party?”

 

“It’s not like that—“

 

“I’m glad you guys are going to talk. Finally. Thank god.”

 

Jin puts his head in his hands. “Yeah, I guess.”

 

***

 

“I’ve never been to a soccer game,” Kamenashi said as they watched a game on TV. He leaned his head on Jin’s shoulder.

 

“I’ll take you to one someday, promise.”

 

Kame held out his pinky. “Swear?”

 

“Yeah,” Jin said, and he did.

 

***

 

Jin and Kame have coffee, and talk about their jobs, Kamenashi’s new niece, and their dogs.

 

It’s surprisingly pleasant, and so they agree to do it again. And again. Jin doesn’t tell anyone about it, and he assumes Kamenashi doesn’t either, since no one asks him about it. After the first time, Yamapi asked him how it had gone and Jin had shrugged. Yamapi hadn’t asked again.

 

Jin thinks he assumes it didn’t go well.

 

But Jin thinks it went too well, because he’s seeing bits and pieces of Old Kame, and it’s making him all confused inside. Jin had gotten used to the burning lust he felt around Kamenashi, but it’s presence without rage made him churn in an entirely new way. And worse still was the return of the sweaty palms and quick breathing, the red flush from a brush of shoulder against shoulder, the rapid heartbeat.

 

Jin still doesn’t understand why Kame makes him feel this way, only this time he’s going to think about it carefully.

When he goes to Budapest at the end of April to film his movie, he exchanges emails with Kamenashi everyday. Sometimes they are inane, about food or what his co-stars are like, and sometimes Kame sends him quotes from whatever poetry book he’s reading at the moment, and Jin sends back witty responses like _That’s so gay, Kamenashi_ , or _What the fuck does that even mean?_ And Kame sends back a smiley face and Jin finds himself filled with a warm burst of something that he can’t name.

 

Jin still calls Pi every Friday, and one Friday when Pi mentions he’s going out to dinner with Kamenashi, hesitantly, Jin has to stop himself from saying “I know, Kamenashi told me yesterday,” and he realizes he might be living a secret life.

 

When he gets back from Budapest, he and Yampi are sitting on the couch watching soccer and Yamapi looks at him and says: “So tell me about your secret girlfriend.”

 

Jin sputters. “I do not have a secret girlfriend!” But then he thinks of Kamenashi and inexplicably blushes.

 

“Ooohhhhh kay.” And then Yamapi pauses. “Is it a secret boyfriend?” And Jin spits popcorn kernels across the table. “Ew, dude, that is DISGUSTING,” Pi says, and Jin glares at him.

 

“Well, what did you expect my reaction to be?! I’m not gay, ass.” Jin takes a napkin to pick up the wet popcorn. “What kind of question is that?”

 

Yamapi shrugs. “Well, you’re acting weird. You were singing Beauty in the Beast in the shower yesterday, man. That is serious love. And since you used to be in gay love with Kamenashi I figured you could be in gay love with someone else, now.”

 

Jin doesn’t even find most of that worth responding to. “I don’t know anything about love, remember?”

 

“Alright,” Yamapi says, but he’s watching Jin out of the corner of his eye for the rest of the night.

 

Jin wonders if love might be feeling like you’re going to explode from all the vines of impatience growing tangled up your veins and wrapping around your heart. Jin wonders if love might be taking a turtle plushie to Budapest, so you don’t have to travel alone.

 

He sends Kame a text. _You look like a total tool on the baseball news right now._

 

_Fuck you._ Is the response, and Jin smiles.

 

***

 

Jin remembers every minute in the hospital after Kame collapses from exhaustion on day during practice. Kame looks so small on the white sheets, an IV in his arm, and Jin wants to protect him more than anything. It’s snowing outside, and Kame hates winter. He prefers the fall. “Jin looks like the fall, too,” he’d said once.

 

A nurse peeks her head in. “Visiting hours are over, young man,” she whispers to Jin, and Jin slowly, despairingly, releases Kamenashi’s hand. Kame immediately starts to whimper and groan, his eyes clenching in discomfort.

 

The nurse looks alarmed. She looks at Jin. He flashes her a crooked smile. “Neither of us do very well alone,” he says, by way of explanation.

 

“Well,” she says, “Just this once.”

 

She leaves Jin there, and Jin lays on the bed next to Kamenashi, who immediately curls into him. “Hey, my prince,” Jin whispers. “Wake up, your princess is waiting.”

 

Kamenashi smiles in his sleep. And it snows.

 

***

 

Before Jin knows it, it’s almost time for Christmas, and Jin is pondering what to get Kamenashi.

 

Jin doesn’t understand his relationship with Kamenashi at all. They argue all the time, but it’s softer somehow.

 

He’s sitting in their café _their café_ and Kame is telling Jin he looks like a cow with all that cake in his mouth. “Shut up,” Jin says. “I am frail, and I need sugar.”

 

Honestly, Jin is exhausted, and he should be sleeping now. He’s doing a big Christmas concert, and rehearsals have wiped him completely out. But Kame had called, and Jin had been finding it harder and harder to say no.

 

“Whatever, you are not frail, Akanishi. You are still the fattest of us all,” Kame says, and Jin looks appraisingly at Kamenashi and thinks about how thin the others had looked at lunch last week and supposes Kamenashi may be right. “But you do look tired.”

 

“Eh, it’s no big deal,” Jin says, flushing. “Really.”

 

Kamenashi does that thing, with his eyebrow, that he picked up sometime when Jin wasn’t talking to him at all, and seeing it now makes Jin inexplicably angry. Jin doesn’t know if it’s because it’s so condescending, or if it’s because he hates thinking about the fact that he and Kame weren’t friends for so long that Kame developed ticks without him noticing.

 

“I hate your eyebrows,” he says. “I really, really hate them.”

 

Kamenashi’s eyes slit at him. “What?”

 

“I just hate them,” Jin says, before realizing Kamenashi is angry.

 

“What does my physical appearance have to do with you, anyway?” he says, and Jin doesn’t know what to say. “You’re such an asshole, and it’s not even conscious with you. What does that even mean?”

 

Jin slouches in his chair. “Nevermind.”

 

“Explain it to me,” Kamenashi says.

 

“I can’t,” Jin says helplessly. “I can’t explain it to you when I don’t even know the answer for myself.”

 

“Akanishi,” Kamenashi says, and Jin looks up from his latte. Kame’s wearing his stone face, and Jin hates that, too. “What is this?”

 

Jin has no answer. “What do you want for Christmas?” Jin says instead, and for the first time in years and years and years, Kamenashi smiles, a real, genuine smile, just for him. And Jin gives the feeling in his chest a name.

 

Jin goes home and writes a song. He then calls his manager and demands it be added to his set.

 

“No back up dancers, no music,” he tells her. “Just me and a guitar.”

 

“What does it even sound like?” she asks, already giving in.

 

“Like magic.”

 

***

 

Jin’s Christmas concert is a big success. The media is on fire with it, talking about his rising star and his reformed image, his soulful music that he wrote all by himself. Jin feels like he might die of pride.

 

The next day, he is doing an interview, and the interviewer asks about his new song. “I wrote it two weeks ago,” Jin says, when asked about the song.

 

“What’s it about?” the interview asks him, and Jin smiles a megawatt grin, one that he hasn’t really shown to a television camera since 2005.

 

“I think,” he says slowly, “I think it’s about love.”

Yamapi texts him 30 minutes later, when he’s off air and walking to his car.

 

_YOU HAVE A SECRET GIRLFRIEND?!!!?!?!_

_Nope,_ he types back.

 

_THEN YOU WISH YOU HAD A SECRET GIRLFRIEND?!?!?!_

_Yeah. But I don’t think it’s mutual._

 

Yamapi doesn’t text back for 15 minutes then, and Jin is halfway home when his phone buzzes.

 

_I bought TEQUILA. COME HOME AND CRY D:_

 

Jin loves Yamapi, too.

 

***

 

They can’t meet again until New Year’s Eve. Jin is invited to 80 bazillion different parties, and gets cussed out by Ryo on the phone (“What, you too big a celebrity now to come out and dance like an idiot with us poor proletariat-types?”), but Jin manages to avoid committing to any of them.

 

He goes to Kamenashi’s apartment for the first time.

 

Kamenashi opens the door wearing a tight, black t-shirt and a loose pair of black silk pants. “Hey,” he says, smiling that smile, and Jin feels his insides squirming.

 

“Here,” he says, and shoves the envelope into Kame’s hands. “Merry Christmas,” he mumbles into his own chest, eyes on the floor.

 

Kamenashi grabs his wrist and pulls him inside. “Come in, you idiot.”

 

Jin finds himself on the couch, a soft brown leather one, drinking tea. Kame’s apartment isn’t anything like what Jin expected. It’s all full of browns and beiges, and the curtains are a soft butter yellow. “I expected skulls,” he says, in lieu of something else to say.

 

Kamenashi looks surprised he remembers. “My bedroom is like that, but my mom hates that stuff,” he admits with a laugh. “So I did out here to look like the fall.” Jin heart is in his throat, and he’s scared he knows this feeling.

 

Kame’s face is soft in the lamplight.

 

“You look like him tonight,” Jin says, and Kamenashi looks confused. “Like Kame, I mean. My Kame,” and Jin drinks from his tea as the silence expands around them.

 

“Open it,” Jin says then, gesturing to the envelope.

 

Inside are season passes to Jin’s favorite soccer team. “I promised you once,” he says uncomfortably, “that I’d take you…”

 

“JIN,” Kamenashi says, and his voice is filled with something that Jin can’t quite place. “Jin, this is…”

 

“And I want to keep my promises,” Jin explains quickly, not sure if the emotion in Kame’s voice is good or bad. “And next year I’m going to buy you a _kotatsu_ and I always keep vanilla ice-cream in my fridge and I took that stupid turtle to Budapest.”

 

Kamenashi is staring at him now. “Then why…”

 

Jin feels miserable, looking at Kame’s face that is a mixture of confusion and anger and something else…something ELSE…

 

“That time,” Jin manages. “That time I told you not to touch me,” and Kame’s face hardens and Jin can see old Kame starting to disappear again so he knows he has to say it fast. “It’s because every time you touched me it felt like my skin was on fire, like I couldn’t breath unless you were beside me, like my heart weighed 500 pounds and if you weren’t carrying it then how was a supposed to GO anywhere and I hated it! I hated having no control and not wanting to share you and…”

 

Jin can’t breathe, can’t look at Kamenashi’s face, and has to escape.

 

Jin finds himself scrambling off the couch and out the door in seconds, leaving Kamenashi staring, wide-eyed, at the spot he has just vacated.

 

***

 

Jin doesn’t leave his room for 3 days. On the second day, Yamapi comes into Jin’s room and sits on the bed while Jin sulks under the covers.

 

“So Kamenashi is your secret girlfriend,” he says conversationally, and Jin refuses to dignify him with an answer. “You are so stupid,” Pi says. “So you can just stay there and sulk until your encore show tomorrow.”

 

***

 

Jin knows someone special is in the audience because his manager keeps giving him these sketchy looks.

 

Jin knows it is Kamenashi because during ‘Eternal’, a spotlight goes on, and Kamenashi joins him on stage as the surprise guest, and Jin’s heart stops in his chest.

 

Their voices have always sounded beautiful together, and Jin can just imagine the newspapers and blogs tomorrow, going crazy about this unexpected duet.

 

Kame won’t stop looking at him.

 

When the show is over, Jin goes backstage to his dressing room, and Kame is waiting outside of it. “I hate you,” Kame says as a greeting. Jin can’t tell if he’s smiling or grimacing. “You really suck. You can’t just tell someone they completely misread you, made your life miserable, and wasted years of time while you were secretly IN LOVE WITH THEM,” Kamenashi starts, while Jin stands there and shivers, not knowing where this is going over if he’s lost Kamenashi’s friendship all over again.

 

“And you’re so selfish, as if you were the only one who felt that way, you stupid ASS,” and Jin doesn’t understand, but Kamenashi seems to realize they’re in a hallway and pulls him inside the dressing room, locking the door.

 

“Yamapi explained about the eyebrows,” Kamenashi says, and Jin winced. “You’re so…I don’t know why I…” And Kamenashi grabs him, and kisses him.  “I’m SO ANGRY at you right now. I just HATE YOU.” And kisses him again.

 

And Jin’s so afraid Kamenashi will change his mind, shove him away. Jin can see that this is a mix of Old Kame and New Kame.

 

“I don’t want to stop. I don’t want to stop…this,” Jin breathes into Kame’s mouth, and Kame growls. And Jin feeds on the anger, thinks it’s hot.

 

“So don’t,” he says, pushing Jin hard. Jin falls on the floor, wincing as he hits the hard floor of the dressing room, glaring up at Kame.

 

“You’re such a dick, even when-“ Kame straddles him then, putting a hand none-too-gently over Jin’s mouth. “Shut up,” he hisses. “You’re always talking and it’s just-“ Jin kisses him, forcing his tongue into Kame’s open mouth. “You shut up,” he replies, craning his neck up as far as he can, his abs straining, to crush his lips to Kame’s over and over and over. Kame moves and moans under the kiss, into the kiss, impatiently fumbling with the garish buttons on Jin’s performance shirt. They stubbornly refuse to undo, so Kame snarls and rips the shirt apart.

 

“You asshole,” Jin moans out as Kame’s lips fasten on his now-bared nipples, and feels his _teeth_. “I, _fuck,_ I love this shirt, _FUCK_ ,” and Kame is licking a trail up to Kame’s lips, hovering above them. ‘I’ll buy you a new one, then,” he says, before he descends.

 

Jin has never felt like this before: filled with rage and confusion and pain, but also like everything in his life has been leading up to _this_ , writhing underneath Kamenashi fucking Kazuya, surrendering to him, and unable to think of anything but how much he doesn’t want it to stop. His whole body is on fire, and he fears he might burn up.

 

And then his eyes meet Kame’s and Kame is burning too, he sees it all reflecting back at him from Kame’s eyes, and _well,_ Jin thinks, _at least we’re turning to ashes together._

 

Soon, they’re both naked, gasping at the touch of flesh on flesh for the first time, of the hard planes of Kame’s thin and wiry frame uncomfortably rubbing against Jin’s slightly softer body; or maybe at the sharp pang of pleasure at the friction between their swollen cocks.

 

Jin is kissing every part of Kame’s body that he can reach, still pinned beneath him, Kame’s lithe thighs resting on either side of his hips.

 

Jin is dying. He feels like he hasn’t breathed in minutes, and ever shudder and whimper that escapes Kame’s mouth drives Jin insane, stabbing him sharply until he feels his emotions bleeding out into the space between them.

 

“Let me fuck you,” Kame says, his voice cracking slightly, and Jin undulates his permission.

 

Kame swears, the reaches a shaking hand up to the dressing room counter. He grabs something, and then Jin feels a slick finger nudging at his entrance.  Kame pauses. “Have you ever-“

 

“No,” Jin grunts, wriggling closer to the finger. “Just girls, really. Never wanted anyone like this. Only wanted _you._ ” Kame hisses, and slides the finger home, flexing it back and forth, stretching.

 

“I didn’t know you would want…” Kame replied, his teeth gritting together. Jin feels he discomfort but longs for it, even—something familiar in a sea of newness.

 

“You’ve done this before,” Jin says, his voice as tight as his thighs, afraid to move, needing to move, _dying_ to move, as Kame adds another finger, scissoring them slightly. Kame flushes, and Jin can’t remember ever being more aroused in his life, wrapped around Kame’s fingers and watching the red linger in his cheeks and throat.

 

“Just…just to myself,” Kame finally says, and Jin thinks he could cum from that image alone.

 

Jin, desperate and writhing, as Kame’s quick fingers brush his prostate again, speaks into the thick air, his breath exploding from him like steam from a boiling train engine. “Fuck me, already.”

 

“Are you sure? I don’t want to—“

 

“Now who’s talking too much?” Jin says, and Kame leans forward and kisses him, and it’s not forceful at all. It’s soft and tender and even more confusing than any kiss they’ve ever shared before, because Jin doesn’t understand it. Because the anger and the lust are the things that Jin understands between himself and Kame, and this isn’t that.

 

And then Kame is sliding into him, and it hurts, but it hurts like Jin had been living his life in black and white, and suddenly everything is in startling, vivid color.

 

Jin’s hips buck wildly as Kame’s thrusts nudge his prostate again and again, and he knows he won’t last long, and thinks Kame won’t either. They’ve had ten years of foreplay, after all, and the build up was too much—Kame keeps hitting his prostate, and the lines in Jin’s head between pleasure and pain begin to blur, and when Kame‘s hand reaches for his cock, grasping it firmly, the lines between consciousness and unconsciousness begin to blur too.

 

Before he can make sense of it all, before he even realizes it, he’s coming all over Kame’s hand, and he can feel the warm spurts inside himself as Kame comes too.

 

The lay together, Kame collapsed on top of Jin, cock softening inside him, on the dressing room floor, and Jin has no idea how he ended up here, or what he’s doing; only he knows that Kame isn’t cold at all, he so warm and Jin never wants to let go.

 

“This is fucked up,” Kame said finally, into Jin’s chest, his breath blowing across Jin’s skin like a promise. “I can’t believe you made me waste so much TIME.”

 

“ I can’t let you go again,” Jin says, and realizes that it’s true.

 

Kame freezes as he processes the words. His body is still and stiff, and fear grips Jin’s heart as Kame gets colder and colder in his arms. But then Kame sighs, and melts back into Jin, after the scariest 10 seconds of Jin’s life. “Okay,” he sighs.

 

“Okay?” Jin asks.

 

“It’s okay if you don’t let me go,” Kame says quietly. “I’ve never been able to let you go either.” The room is silent now, except for their soft breaths, and Jin knows the room must smell like burning as he crumbles into ashes.

 

He thinks of his turtle, which is sitting in his duffel, along with his clothes and his painkillers, and of the ice cream in his freezer.

 

This isn’t a fairy tale, Jin thinks, but it’s alright.

 

***

 

 

Jin waits for KAT-TUN’s practice to end, sitting on a bench in the hallway outside the choreo room. He can remember when he used to be on the receiving end of Kame’s sharp tongue and barking corrections and narrowed eyes, and a part of him misses the feeling of belonging.

 

But then Koki is exiting the room to refill his water bottle, and looks surprised to see him. Seeing Jin waiting there, he looks confused. “Is there something you need, man?”

 

“Nope, not really,” he says.

 

“Well, practice is over…” he says, and then they chat for a little while, about nothing and then about Nakamaru’s new girlfriend, who Koki describes as sweet (Koki is not talking about her personality, but about her fantastic ass) and Jin listens and responds and Jin can’t remember if it’s 2006 or 2012.

 

But then he excuses himself and walks into the room. Nakamaru is on the floor, back to the mirror, drinking water and eyes closed. Ueda is next to him, examining his complexion. Koki is right behind Jin, standing in the door. But Jin is looking over to where Taguchi and Kame are standing, laughing about something as Kame vigorously towels the sweat out of his hair that’s too long again, the tendrils curling up on his shoulders.

 

Jin approaches him, and lays a hand lightly on the back of his neck to get his attention. But he instead gains everyone’s attention, and Jin remembers that the last time they were all together, Jin had punched Kame in the face. “Hey,” he says softly to Kame, pretending as if they are alone. “Dinner?”

 

Kame looks at him, and his eyes soften in a way Jin hasn’t seen since they were children. “Of course,” he replies, just as softly, and grabs his duffel bag.

 

The others are watching with eagle eyes, weighing every gesture, and Jin knows it.  They watch incredulously as the two leave together. They’re not touching at all, and they’re not even looking at each other, but Jin holds his happiness tight to his heart.

 

They don’t understand the way Jin feels around Kame, like a wild animal who isn’t sure if the other is friend or foe. They’ve only seen one side of Jin’s strange relationship with Kame, not the side where Kame melts into him like butter and tells Jin how he’s sorry and Jin whispers that he’s sorry too and then they kiss and their kisses are full of idealism and dreams and Jin feeling like he’s 16 all over again.

 

But this isn’t the past. This Kame isn’t Old Kame or Stone Kame, but some weird mix that Jin can’t get enough of, and he wants to spend a lifetime exploring and cataloguing every reaction.

 

Kame laces his fingers with Jin’s when they’re out of the room, and Jin smiles and looks over at his future.

 

 

***

Jin strokes his fingers across Kame’s brow. “It’s all fuzzy again,” Jin says, unexpectedly.

 

Kame reaches his hands up, in a panic, to feel his eyebrows. “Wait seriously? How is that even--”

 

“No, no,” Jin says, laughing. “I meant your heart.” And then he drops his face into Kamenashi’s neck, and grins.

 

Love is feeling like you’re going to die, but you’ve never been happier to be alive. Love is burning. Love is sharp angles and anger and pleasure and sometimes confusion. Love is knowing without the other person, your life is just a little bit less. Love is sex on the dressing room floor, angry kisses, and secret coffee dates. Love is Kamenashi, for Jin. Love is a turtle on the dashboard.

 

“Oh, Princess Jinnifer, you’re so romantic.”

 

Jin, who is 28 years old, knows all about love.

 

They buy a _kotatsu._


End file.
